What if company meetings were like a blog comment free-for-all?

You know who I miss? I miss the guy who lives in the apartment behind mine who likes to wear nothing but a bra and panties and eat giant bowls of cereal. Oh partially naked guy, I won't be able to see you again until the leaves fall from the trees... and no longer obscure my view... I hope you still live there by then.

Oh Daniel!

Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter Fame hits Avengers' Dame Diana Rigg in the face with a condom!

I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it myself. Oh Mrs. Peel, you poor poor woman.




Thanks for the tip Niki!

In my mind, I wonder what Amy Winehouse sounds like when she speaks...













I like to picture her sounding like Kat from Miami Ink...





But In reality, I bet she sounds more like a British Fran Drescher... I don't know why...

Not that there's anything wrong with Fran Drescher... Right?

I really want to thank everyone being so nice about my Gramma and getting in touch wit h me. She is amazing, and we hope she'll stick around a little bit longer, but that if she is in a lot of pain she can go quickly.

She grew up in Duschesne (an unpronounceable Utah town name) and work in a local hotel as the general assistant/go to girl. She met my grandfather, who was 25 years her senior there. She was 17 when they got married, and alone and pregnant she moved to Salt Lake City to wait for Grandpa to finish building Strawberry Reservoir. She had to deal with burying three babies, and it took her several years to have my mother, and another 8 year for my uncle Joe.

She has worked her entire life, she's never once thought of not working. Her children were instilled with that at a young age, my mother started dancing professionally at age 3 and was making all her own money by the time she was 11. My uncle did odd jobs and saved every dime. I think he still is.

To me, my gramma was a second mom. My father left when I was 18 months, and I was the youngest of 6 children. My mother sank into a deep depression and wouldn't leave her bed for several years. Finally she did and decided to go to school. She became a paralegal by the time I was 6. Meanwhile, I was so small I needed care all the time. This fell on Gramma and Grannpa. I knew how to dial their phone number before I could tell you my own. Gramma would drop me off back at home, and I'd call her within hours begging to come back. We had special dinners together, peaches, toast, and chocolate milk every night. And we'd just sit and talk. I had my own drawer in her dresser that had all my treasures in it, my blanket, my costume jewels she gave me, cigar boxes of grandpa's to put special rocks and toys in. And when we slept I shared a bed with her, we'd fall asleep talking and holding hands. She'd tell me stories from memory, like Thumbelina, and Pinnochio. She is a very dramatic story teller.

Every morning we'd wake up with the train rumbling through Rose Park and we'd get up to go take care of her horses, Raffi and Sunshine. I helped with every aspect of their care and got to learn how to ride bareback. I fed the barn cats, and they would follow me all across the stables. I had my own dog, so to speak, Tiffany. She was a Keeshund, the most gentle dog on the planet. She was so well trained that she knew how to herd me away from trouble and bring me back to Gramma if I strayed too far. She always had pets, and taught me the love to be found in caring for something other than yourself. She owned (my brother know owns it, but she doesn't know) a 10 acre piece of land near Fruitland in the Uintahs. I spent nearly every other weekend there growing up. There was a tree fort, and a huge fire pit, and the river at the bottom of the pasture that had a sand bar. There were cactus's and juniper trees, and Indian paintbru sh. Red ground and beautiful blue skies. That was our retreat and our haven. I'm so grateful it will remain in our family.

When Tiffany died when I was 18, I was completely devastated. Raffi passed, then Sunshine. But we have her filly Dixie still.

The hardest part of dealing with gramma has always been "her episodes". She was not diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder until she was in her mid-50's. She had been self medicating by being an alcoholic. She would stop drinking, or later go off her meds, and would just deteriorate. She went through psychotherapy, and even electroshock until she was in almost her 60's. She had a tendency toward paranoia, and bouts of almost amnesia. She would be picked up by the police disoriented and confused. As her age progressed it became full blown dementia. She can barely contain any memories anymore, and what she does remember is confused and possibly untrue.

This is the worst part of watching her fade. She was the most active, lively, irrepressible woman I've ever known. She needed a fence on her land, she built it by hand. She got lonely in her later years, she dated a much younger man. She gave me my first bottle of hair color (officially a hair rinse) in the same color she's used for the past 30 years when I was 9 years old, an a le ather mini-skirt when I was 11. She loved listening to Cocteau Twins with me when I lived at her house for a brief time when I was 17 and had been kicked out. We would listen to them and just talk about life. She has always loved me as a daughter and I hope I am worthy of that lov e.

No matter what happens Gramma, I will always love you as my second mom and my first and most important best friend.

Funny thing, most people move to the world of online personals (oh I'll admit it) when they feel like they've run out of good chances to meet people in the "real" world.

I'm some times amazed and yet not at how quick the judgments of people are. Uploading a bad photo is like going out in public in your PJ's and curlers, what is the impression you're making. Because this is a world of snap judgments.

I know, because I do the same, "eh too bald, too brooding, too... Utah" I've noticed a remarkable trend in similarity, looks wise. And if all of these men who say they are into the outdoors and traveling the world and hot babes, but having a deep emotional connection... then why are they still online?

I suppose this is really naive of me... but I'm not going to date where I work, and frankly I don't get out as much as I do.

Beggars shouldn't be choosers, but still... Bareguyut69, I don't think it's going to work out.

I've never been a huge Daft Punk fan, they're entertaining, it's easy to dance to. It reminds me of too many alcohol fueled nights at Bricks when I was 19... but this song has been stuck in my head ever since I saw this first video.



But now we had to have a video fight off... fight...down? Uhm.... whatever, which one do you think is better?



Hard choice, huh?

Thanks for the tip Becca, Dan Deacon rules. He rules this fucking planet.

I am absolute smitten by this man right now. I've always had a major soft spot for magicians. I even had The Harry Black magic kit when I was a kid and never got very good at it. But I've always been fascinated by magic of all types, psychological especially.

Meet Darren Brown... ...an adorable British man who simply does the most amazing feats of psychological trickery.

Here's just a very very silly clip of his. Sorry, but I couldn't get an embedded version.

But then there's this amazing (looooong video) of his show called "Trick or Treat", which is basically an intense mind trip. In this one, a girl has an "out of body" experience with her own death simulated.

I'd like to introduce you to Ben. He's my favorite interweb star. Cause he makes me laugh my ass off. Please, feel free to visit him at his many websites:

The Heather and Ben Show
i <3 snacks
Inside Ben's Head

And partake of this lovely gem, that first made me love him, all those two long years ago.

Ever had one of those days were you get up and just decide that doing anything more taxing than reading two books is a very bad thing?

And by the way, just because the three books I read this week were recommended to me by my 15 year old niece means nothing... Other than the fact that I just read two young adult books and an anthropological study on why some cultures thrived, progressed and then decided to go kill other people and take their land.... uhm.... so...

Now I'm going to bed, with visions of Manifest Destiny skipping through my head.

Happiness is a 20 movie pack of Cult Classics.

Reefer Madness, check.
Omoo-Omoo, The Shark God, check.
Child Bride, check.

The list goes on, lots of sex, drugs and... test tube babies.

I can feel myself going numb from joy.

Ok, new internal debate. Keep gym membership, or nix gym membership and put that money towards car?

And if anyone (of the four people who read this blog) ever feel the urge to help me house hunt, since I like to give up after the 15th "no pets" refusal... I won't say no.

Off to tend to sunburn now since I decided to wander off in the mountains for a long time, sit in the beautiful sunshine surrounded by juniper trees, get completely lost, have to walk down a wash with huge storm clouds behind me and almost miss my family's property by about a half mile.

I'm just going to continue posting videos forever... It's what makes me happy.

Well, ARUP caught on that people were spending time on Blogger, so now it is blocked from work. There go my most creative moments!

Update? Yes, let's.

Other ankle, whamo, ouch. Only had a brace for a week, but it was one of those monsterous boot things.

My brother Eric and his wife came to a family function. *jaw drops* and she managed to stay civial and not blame any of the problems of their children on me. I spent the first couple of seconds they showed up saying "what the hell?" over and over without realizing it. Hopefully they didn't notice.

I'm on the hunt for a car, so I can spend less time injuring myself, and more time: doing what I want, not asking for rides, going to SL Cemetary for lunch like I used to, driving to Antelope Island or Saltair, going camping, going to the gym, going to a movie by myself, grocery shopping, going to appointments without having to schedule around when I might be able to get a lift, DOING WHAT I WANT!

Ahem.

Let's see, with no television (by choice) I've become the voracious reader I used to be. I'm almost back up to my old speed, I can read approximately 400 pages in two days. When I'm back up to one day, that'll be a good thing.

I've been out doing more walking, well since I got the monster boot off, but I really want to be back up to hiking like I was before I hurt my ankle. I held my own, for the most part, in Goblin... but I was despondent about not being able to climb and be crazy like everyone else. Must. Get. Weight. Off.

Sadly, there is nothing else to report. So I'll give you another video. Remember Oasis, Wonderwall? Well, this is how the song should have sounded....

I just love Feist. And this is the most adorable video, to the most adorable song.